Archive for the ‘Iran’ Category

TEHRAN (FNA) — Iran unveiled a home-made unmanned flying saucer as well as a light sports aircraft in an exhibition of strategic technologies. The unmanned flying saucer, named “Zohal”, was unveiled in a ceremony attended by Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

Flying saucers. Wow. I guess they had to try something different since they still haven’t managed to get that flying carpet tech off the ground. (“Just think, Abdul, once we get these carpets airborne, then we can be the ones carpet-bombing the infidels!”) However, the image that they used was apparently stolen from this site (thanks for the frequency, Kenneth). How dumb are you when you can’t even fake up your own flying saucer picture? Don’t they have frisbees or pie pans in Iran? Anyway, before they go any further with their space program, somebody needs to explain to the Iranians about the hazards they will face in outer space…

According to The Jerusalem Post (H/T: Killian Bundy) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad survived an attempt on his life:

A conservative Iranian website said a handmade grenade exploded Wednesday near President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s convoy in an apparent assassination attempt, but Tehran state TV denied the report. The website, khabaronline.ir, said the grenade detonated near Ahmadinejad’s convoy as he was on his way to address a crowd in the western Iranian town of Hamedan but did not harm him. The president later gave his speech as planned, and it was broadcast live on state television. He made no mention of the attack in his remarks. One person was arrested in connection with the attack, the website report said, adding that Ahmadinejad’s car was about 100 yards (meters) from the blast. It also said there was no information whether anyone was injured. … Iran’s state-run Press TV, the government’s main English-language broadcast arm, said an informed source in Ahmadinejad’s office vehemently denied the allegation, insisting “no such attack had happened.”

One has to wonder how anybody can be arrested for an attack that didn’t take place. Looking through khabaronline.ir with Google translate, we can see that the government later released the story that the explosion which previously didn’t exist is now being described as “a firecracker” that was set off by supporters of the President. The JPost, however, reminds us that it is supporters of Ahmadinejad which are less likely to exist:

Ahmadinejad, whose popularity at home is waning amid a faltering economy and tightened UN and Western sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear program, regularly tours the countryside to deliver speeches to grassroot supporters in cities and town across Iran. Other media reported an explosion in the area but gave conflicting accounts about the cause. The semiofficial Fars news agency said a handmade grenade was thrown at the path where the president and his entourage had been but only after they had left the site. Fars said the explosion disturbed people at the site. Hamedan, 200 miles (340 kilometers) west of Tehran, is not known as a restive area, but it is close to Kurdish area of Iran that has witnessed occasional clashes between Kurdish rebels and security forces over the past years. Ahmadinejad also said Monday during a speech that Israel had sent agents to assassinate him, but he gave no details.

That’s a lot of different official and semi-official stories. However, given how many American soldiers and Iraqi civilians have been murdered by IEDs made in Iran, it seems fitting that Ahmadinejad should be facing his own improvised explosive devices. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving diminutive despot.

Posted in Iran, Terrorism | Comments Off on If At First You Don’t Succeed…

Well, promiscuous women in revealing clothing have been known to rock my world from time to time. Still, if that were true, wouldn’t you see more earthquakes in areas where more skin is displayed (I’m looking at you, Rio!) and less in countries where women are hidden under tarpaulins?

Iran is one of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, and the cleric’s unusual explanation for why the earth shakes follows a prediction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit Tehran and that many of its 12 million inhabitants should relocate. … Seismologists have warned for at least two decades that it is likely the sprawling capital will be struck by a catastrophic quake in the near future…

The catastrophic disaster soon to strike Iran has little to do with promiscuous women and much to do with the Israeli Air Force, inshallah.

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

For proof, he cited figures from NASA and Hadley CRU, and the collected scientific works of Al Gore. The reliability, credibility, and adherence to rigorous scientific methodology is the same.

In 2003, a powerful earthquake hit the southern city of Bam, killing 31,000 people – about a quarter of that city’s population – and destroying its ancient mud-built citadel.

First suggestion: Don’t name any of your cities “Bam”, “Pow”, or “Ka-Boom”. Second suggestion: if they’re anywhere near a fault line, built them out of something other than mud. What century is this, again? What exactly is Iran spending all of those petrodollars on?

Ahmadinejad made his quake prediction two weeks ago but said he could not give an exact date.

I predict that an earthquake will hit San Francisco. I cannot give an exact date. Still, the only way to be safe is to immediately worship me and give all earthly power to me.

Once again, Muslim terrorists have struck; blowing up trains filled with innocent people. This time, it was in Moscow; with at least thirty-seven people dead (no word on whether or not this total includes the two female suicide bombers) and sixty-five injured. Putin has said that the “terrorists will be destroyed“; no word on whether or not this is going to put a crimp in his plans to make Iran a nuclear power. After all, what could possibly go wrong? Nuclear-armed muslims will be a threat to America and Israel, but would certainly never bite the comrade that feeds them, right?

Meanwhile, as this was happening in Russia, back in America the Obama administration was busy going after Christians.

Michel Gurfinkiel at Pajamas Media has written that “The Obama administration’s decision to treat an ally like a rogue state seems to have backfired.”

Vice President Joe Biden landed in Israel on March 8 … Then, news broke, from an Israeli Interior Ministry source, that Israel was going to build 1600 housing units in Ramat Shlomo, a neighborhood in northern Jerusalem that the Obama administration sees as part of East Jerusalem, i.e., an “occupied Palestinian territory.” … It looked a bit like an Israeli blunder, or even a provocation, since Netanyahu had agreed to Obama’s request, some six months earlier, to freeze for some time any settlement building in the West Bank, if not in East Jerusalem. … However, it became clear very soon that there was no Israeli decision at all to expand Ramat Shlomo. … There was only a green light, at a very subordinate bureaucratic level at the Ministry, to review a housing project, without any kind of government commitment. … Clearly, there was an attempt, at some very high level in the Obama administration, to draw political benefit from the Ramat Shlomo announcement. And maybe to engineer such an announcement in the first place. … Either accidental or premeditated, the lynching of Netanyahu, Israel, and Oren probably had something to do with the AIPAC conference taking place from March 21 to March 23. Most American Jews – 77 percent of them – voted for Barack Obama in 2008. Many wonder today if this was the right move. Disappointment may lead to defection, a very bad prospect in a midterm election year. Hence the solution: to turn Netanyahu into a mere provocateur who insults the United States, and Obama into a true friend of Israel. However, the whole operation seems to have backfired. The more people thought about it, the more it was President Barack Obama who insulted Israel – and the American people. Not the other way around. Obama is now willing to meet Netanyahu in the wake of the AIPAC conference. Quite a change of tune from a fortnight ago.

This article, which I merely summarized (read the whole thing!) does a good job in exposing the Obama administration’s dishonesty and hypocrisy in their reaction to Israel’s insult; that hypocrisy is even more blatant if you consider the context (which Gurfinkiel did not get into) of the various other “insults” against America and/or Israel which all happened this month, which did not cause President Obama’s Administration or Hillary Clinton’s State Department to shriek up to DefCon One. These include Russia and Iran continuing to move forward on their nuclear ties, increased terrorist activity against Israel (much of which appears to have been caused by Obama’s gambit, to the point where many in and out of Israel are referring to the “Obama Intifada“), and so forth. One could also speculate that the good press Obama had hoped (in vain) to gain from his Israel-bashing might have helped to balance or distract from all of the negative attention that ObamaCare was getting at the time. In any event, the truth is out, and Israel knows who she can trust and who she can’t. Hopefully American Jews are also learning this lesson on the way to midterm elections in November.

Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Clinton and Joint Chief’s Chairman Mike Mullen have all recently visited Israel on two issues, reliable information that Israel was planning an attack on Iran, a plan designed to push America into a war our leaders believe is both wrong and likely to risk a global nuclear confrontation with Russia and the building of a massive housing project on the Arab side of Jerusalem in violation of numerous agreements, a project that is likely to cause a spike in world terrorism and send thousands of new fighters to Afghanistan to face American forces there. This is the worst point in the history of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel since the founding of that nation in 1948 but these are not the only reasons, not these and the arrogant and intractable attitude of Israel’s leaders nor being caught in lie after lie, lies told to their financial backer and closest ally, the United States. … Unofficially, Israel has moved to the top of America’s “terrorist watch list” and is now drifting toward “evildoer” status, not only by the White House but, more broadly, through top defense officials who now perceive Israel as a threat to the United States.

It wasn’t clear late Wednesday what effect the order had on Gmail services in Iran, or even if Iran had implemented its new policy. Iranian officials have claimed technological advances in the past that they haven’t been able to execute. Google didn’t have an immediate comment about the announcement.

I’m not sure what comment they’d be expected to have, other than “BFD!” or “Bwahaha!” Then again, it must hurt their cold, dark leftie hearts at Google that they’ve now been spurned by two evil totalitarian regimes in as many months. Oh well, they still have Obama.

Iran denies entry to Senator Kerry (D-Botox): “Members of the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue,” Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency.

“The day I was not allowed… to meet with the leaders of Iran to avert a conflict with the rogue state of Israel… and prevent unjust sanctions against the peace-loving Persian people… is seared, SEARED, into my memory…” Ah, schadenfreude.

For the first time ever, Israel has called ALL of its ambassadors and consuls home for meetings this week in Jerusalem. The meetings opened today. (H/T Gateway Pundit)

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) — The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Avigdor Liberman, will host a conference next week (27-31 December) for Israeli Heads of Missions. At the conference, Israel’s ambassadors and consuls general serving throughout the world will discuss broad diplomatic and strategic issues. This is the first time a conference for all of Israel’s Heads of Missions has been held. The idea is to facilitate direct dialogue with the country’s leaders, mutual updates on major diplomatic issues, and a discussion of action plans to deal with the challenges awaiting the State of Israel in the international arena in the coming year, including the Iranian threat. … [emphasis added]

Oh please oh please oh please and about frickin’ time? Israel has known since before Bozo was inaugurated that he would protest strenuously any unilateral action on Israel’s part to impose bunker-busting “sanctions” on Obama’s buddies in Iran; perhaps by now Israel has realized how completely toothless any response Obama makes will be. He certainly hasn’t reacted with any decisiveness against the actions of any other country on Earth (apart from the one he’s trying to disassemble in North America); see his latest response to current events in Iran.

Frequent topics of discussion are whether or not Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, and whether or not Israel could successfully cripple Iran’s nuclear industry (given the hardened and widely dispersed multiple sites. I’m going to take the “should” as read (of course somebody should, and it doesn’t look like anyone else is going to do it), and table the question of “could” – we won’t know whether or not Israel can successfully take out all or most of the sites until she tries. For many of us who believe as I do in the necessity and inevitably of these attacks, the only question is “When will Israel act?” (Which may also be phrased as “What the hell is Israel waiting for?” …But I digress.) If we agree that an attack by Israel is both necessary and inevitable, then the only point of discussion left (apart from the timing) is the nature of the attack. Will it be limited only to those known sites which are part of Iran’s nuclear program, or will there be other targets as well? This question is rarely addressed as everyone seems to assume that only the nuclear sites will be targeted. As a purely hypothetical thought exercise, however, I find myself wondering exactly why Israel should not have a broader agenda if and when she does attack; and what the repercussions would be.

First, on the matter of repercussions, I don’t believe that expanding the scope of attacks will result in a proportionate expansion of the repercussions against Israel. This is because the attacks against Israel are never reasoned or proportionate. If Israel takes any military action against Iran at all, she will be facing a new wave of Intifada from the Palestinians, another nave of attacks from Iran’s Hezbollah clients, further one-sided attacks by the United Nations and other left-leaning anti-Semitic transnational organizations, blood libel in European newspapers, calls for sanctions, calls fro boycotts of Israel products, etc. Most of this is already old news and business as usual for Israel; and since she is going to get this reaction regardless of what action she takes, there is absolutely no reason for her to show any restraint when that restraint will not in any way be noted or rewarded. It would most likely be seen as yet another sign of weakness. So, from the point of view of reprisals, there is no reason why Israel should not pursue a broader campaign against Iran than just her nuclear sites.

Please note that I am not talking about attacks on civilian targets. Israel tried harder than almost anybody to avoid civilian casualties; it is the Palestinians and Hezbollah who hide their rocket launchers behind the human shields of the populace who are committing war crimes, not the Israelis who go after the launchers. However, even if Israel manages to destroy the entirety of Iran’s nuclear program – all of the sites and equipment – that won’t do anything about their will to simply rebuild and reacquire the facilities to eventually obtain nuclear weapons, and there remain plenty of other nations (up to and including Russia) who are more than willing to assist them in this goal. So, in addition to removing the capability to acquire and use nuclear weapons, perhaps a second prong of the presumed Israeli attack ought to target Iran’s will to acquire and use nuclear weapons. This would involve additional attacks on Iranian military and government targets.

An attack on military targets would limit Iran’s ability to stage a reprisal against Israel with purely convention forces, and also leave it with (at the very least) the appearance of being weaker militarily to its neighbors (and internal dissenters). This would give the Iranian government far more things to deal with in the short range than to rebuild their nuclear program… Especially if any of the (surviving) high-ranking military personnel blank Iran’s nuclear program for the attack upon them in the first place, and see that any additional attempts by Iran’s government to acquire nuclear weapons could lead to additional attacks on the Iranian military. Other ways to distract the focus (and finances) of the Iranian government might include attacks upon the Iranian infrastructure, including oil wells, pipelines, major roads and rail lines, and so forth. All of these would take time and money to rebuild. It’s true that these attacks would be de facto acts of war against Iran; but then, simply attacking their nuclear facilities would also be an act of war. If you’re going to commit an act of war, you might as well go all the way.

Finally, there’s the issue of whether or not Iranian government figures and facilities would be viable targets. Israel has employed assassination against enemies before, so it would not be an unprecedented act on their part to target high-ranking members of the Iranian government. Even if they didn’t get Ahmadinejad, just the fact that they were willing to try once (and might be willing to try again) ought to “focus his mind.” After all, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi got awfully quiet for a while after Reagan dropped a few bombs uncomfortably close to him; and he really got nervous when he saw what the US did to Saddam Hussein. Dictators couldn’t care less what you do to their citizens (odds are they’re killing far more of their own people already than you ever will) but they sure as hell care about their own skins. Ahmadinejad might not be overly frightened by the thought that Israel plans to bomb his reactors, but he’s bound to have an entirely different reaction to the thought that Israel plans to bomb him. Other dictators might also hesitate in their attempts to join the nuclear club if they knew that they, too, would be personally targeted.

So, as I said, just a “purely hypothetical thought exercise”. What do you think? If Israel’s going to attack Iran anyway (and isn’t it about damned time?) should they go for a broader range of targets? What do they have to lose that they won’t already face by going after a more limited set of targets?